BNP ‘Red, White & Blue’ festival meets stiff resistance

15th Aug, 2009: Thousands of British citizens came together today to disrupt the BNP’s annual ‘Red, White and Blue’ festival. The opening day of the British National Party’s propaganda event in Derbyshire was widely disrupted as protesters blocked roads, physically stopping BNP members and potential recruits from reaching the festival. The day passed with minimal violence, and nine reported arrests.

Coaches left from all over Britain early this morning, to reach Codnor in time to blockade roads leading into the site of the BNP’s festival. Word spread fast that protesters had surrounded the car of French far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, preventing him from speaking at the event.

While the largest anti-BNP protest took place in the centre of Codnor, smaller groups of two to three hundred protesters occupied roads leading to the festival, making travel there impossible. The festival is reported to have been seriously disrupted, with BNP leader Nick Griffin having made a complaint to the police that his followers could not make it there.

Many potential attacks were averted by the sheer number of anti-fascist protesters present, with BNP supporters vastly outnumbered and being forced to retreat from confrontation. Protesters were well-disciplined, and linked arms when confronted with the risk of attack by fascists or the police.

Residents appaud protesters. Photo @ Josh Jones 2009

Reception from townsfolk was mixed. Many local residents cheered and clapped the passing protesters, with one woman thanking the group for ‘keeping that scum off our streets’. Others were unsympathetic to the protest, and frustrated by the disruption caused. One resident summarizsd the scenario to me by saying: ‘Having the BNP over there is like having a paedophile that lives across the road.

‘You know they’re going to cause trouble if you bother them, so you keep you kids away and leave em alone. That’s what we do. But every year, the protest comes here and causes us all a nuisance.’

Protesters described the day as an unmitigated success. ‘It was the best we could have hoped for’, said Mark, a social worker from London. ‘We ruined a big day for Britain’s openly racist and fascist party.

‘It was truly empowering to see these racists running scared from black, white and Asian British people, who were linking arms and making their voices heard peacefully.’

I considered doing so, but in light of the confident and public nature of the women’s support, and their willingness to be photographed, it seemed clear they were willing to deal with the risks involved.

Chambers Dictionary defines fascism as being composed for four or five characteristics, one of which is “militarism”. Labour plus Tories took the British military to Iraq (“for the oil” according to Alan Greenspan) and a million Muslims and Kurds died as a result. In contrast the BNP always opposed the war. Who are the fascists on that score?

And then there is small question of the million or so Muslims and Kurds killed. Who are the racists?
The BNP are going to have to kill an awful lot of Muslims etc before they become more racist than Labour or the Tories.

And the following sentence of yours is bunk: “‘It was truly empowering to see these racists running scared from black, white and Asian British people, who were linking arms and making their voices heard peacefully.” I was there. The police kept the two sides very well separated. No one “ran scared” from anyone else.

The BNP’s concept of ‘ethno-nationalism’ is intrinsically racist. It is rooted in the concept that some people ‘belong’ elsewhere, and you can tell where they ‘belong’ by looking at the colour of their skin. If that s not racial discrimination, then what is?

When you combine such a clearly racist ideology with a political party which is willing to put this system into force, i.e. by deporting those who don’t ‘belong’, then you have what I would call a fascist party. It does not matter whether the party wants to implement a Holocaust or start wars with countries where peo0ple have skin of a different colour; it is enough for me to know that the party would commit ethnic cleansing.

Additionally, if you look at the past and present membership of the BNP, there is a recurring admiration towards Hitler, the Nazis, and Nazi ideals, including Jew-hating and homophobia.

For these reasons, the BNP is without doubt a fascist party.

To come to your suggestion that no-body ‘ran scared’. Having been in the block that resisted the BNP, I personally witnessed BNP supporters jeering and shouting from behind the police lines, only to run scared when protesters surged forward in response. Additionally, at the human road-blocks, BNP supporters would walk up aggressively looking to break through or start trouble, but retreat in the face of confident, united anti-fascist protesters.

Everyone signs up, turns up at their next AGM and redubs the party the Be Nice to People Party. Now there’s some chngae I would vote for.Also keep an eye open for the next programme of Question Time, as it’s the first time the BNP will on a mainstream discussion platform in the UK. I shall be bringing eggs and coating my television in plastic, for the fully interactive experience.